Effect of catalyst loading pattern on selective hydrogenation of C₃ distillates via catalytic distillation

In order to investigate the effect of catalyst loading pattern on the reaction result in a catalytic distillation column, the studies both on the residence time distribution (RTD) and the liquid solid mass transfer were conducted. The experiments reveal that the liquid-solid mass transfer coefficient for the pattern of randomly dumped packing with ring-type catalytic is about three times higher than that of regularly stacked packing with pillar-type catalyst, and the liquid flow in the dumped packing may be treated as a plug flow, while the RTD of stacked packing could be described by 11-CSTRs (continuous stirred tank reactors) in series. The selective hydrogenation experiments of C₃ distillates show that for the pattern of dumped packing, the performance of removing MAPD to less than 15 μg·g^-1 is superior to that of stacked packing which is caused by the combinative influence of inadequate liquid-solid contact and a certain degree back mixing of the liquid phase when the pattern of stacked packing is used.